Film
What's on at the cinema plus reviews of the latest movie and DVD releases
Bookmark this pageThe Pride and the Passion (1957)
Director: Stanley Kramer
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
Spectacularly solemn and silly epic based on CS Forester's novel about Napoleon's Iberian campaign (The Gun), full of sound and fury (and heaving bodies) signifying nothing. If you can believe in Sinatra as an 1810 vintage Spanish guerrilla, you can believe anything, but it's still a slog through a platitudinous script as (with Grant and Loren looking on while providing the love interest) he struggles to lug a vast cannon within range of the Napoleonic invaders.Author: TM
User reviews of this film
-
- cherpitel said...
- Posted on Jan 23 2012 05:30 Highly under-rated of great epic films. The story moves like Antheil's great music score. A story of courage & fortitude & determination.One of the best ever made in the spic genre.
- Report as inappropriate
-
- Steve Paradis said...
-
Posted on Jul 17 2010 05:38
The following is from the TCM notes:
"The picture deviates sharply from the C. S. Forester novel on which it is based. There are no prominent female or British characters in the novel, and the character of "Miguel" in the film is a compilation of the several guerrilla leaders who take possession of the gun throughout the course of the book. In the novel, the gun, while it does eventually aid the downfall of the French through forcing the dispersal of their troops, is not used against a major city such as Avila and is destroyed in battle." In the book, the gun is an eighteen pounder, a normal artillery piece, and not the behemoth of the film.
Forester's prescient 1933 novel about guerrilla war in Spain is a much darker and realistic story than the mess that was inflicted on the screen by Kramer.
The star is for Anthiel's score, and the credit sequence by Saul Bass. If you're wise, you'll tune out when it ends. - Report as inappropriate
Cast & crew
Director: Stanley Kramer
Producer: Stanley Kramer
Cast: Cary Grant, Frank Sinatra, Sophia Loren, Theodore Bikel, John Wengraf, Jay Novello full cast
Genre(s): Epics
Duration: 132 mins
Top Stories
Ben Drew aka Plan B interview
The singer, rapper and now film director discusses his debut film 'Ill Manors'
Cannes Film Festival 2012: final round-up
Dave Calhoun draws the curtain on the world's greatest film festival
Ridley Scott interview
Director Ridley Scott tells Cath Clarke why he's making a science fiction comeback
What do you think?
Post your review now